Revealed: the mind of an anti-smoker
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 Sometimes you think you have read it all and then an article like this appears. It was written by David Sexton and was published by the London Evening Standard.
It now seems simply bizarre that people used to be allowed to smoke in planes, on the Tube, in hospitals, offices and restaurants.
In time, it will seem equally improbable that they could once do so with impunity in the faces of people sharing public space outside.
The arguments may no longer be about the dangers of secondary smoking but they are no less compelling. It's not just that they smell so terrible and throw their butts everywhere.
When you see a smoker, sucking in hard as soon as he or she gets to the threshold, what you are seeing is not just addiction but self-harming of the most terrible kind. Half of all regular smokers are killed by their habit.
No other vice, not even drinking to excess, is so directly and inherently suicidal. We would not find it acceptable to see people routinely setting fire to themselves in public.
Yet that is precisely what smoking in public is equivalent to. Children should not grow up thinking that's normal.
Properly understood, smoking is a moral affront every time. So long as we smile on it, we are approving a holocaust.
Full article HERE.
I know that columnists have a page to fill ("It doesn't matter what you write, just get it written" is a mantra that many journalists grew up with) but do they really have to sink this low?
No wonder the Standard is free these days. Who would pay to read this pathetic illiberal rubbish?
Reader Comments (30)
Yet again figures are being thrown around, in this case 114,000 people a year die of smoking - where is the evidence? Where are the death certificates that say Cause of Death - Smoking?
He points out that smoking is decreasing, yes it was, until the ban of 2007 - the decrease in smoking rates has since more or less halted.
He bleats that he and other non smokers do not like to run the gauntlet of smokers outside pubs, offices, shops, etc - well, why are they there? It certainly is not out of choice - smokers have been denied the basic human right of choice by draconian actions.
I realise this will get the anti smokers going on about 'what about their rights' but this has been covered time and again - choice for businesses and venues as to what their smoking policy is, as they have established in the majority of European countries, caters for everyone and the antis do not then have to run the gauntlet of smokers outside pubs, offices and shops, etc. Such a simple little thing as CHOICE would accommodate everyone. Unfortunately, the narrow minded, can't be bothered to find out the true facts, like the useless lot of politicians that we have today, as well as the journalists who perhaps should be writing fiction, along with many in the medical profession and others in positions of responsibility should all be utterly ashamed that they have allowed the blatant lies and propoganda of pseudo charities and government paid quangos to brainwash them in order for them to spread the brainwashing to those citizens gullible enough to be taken in! Anyway, make a big enough noise about something being 'lethal' and it is amazing how the gullible follow, as the rats followed the Pied Piper. It is absolutely pathetic to see how many people are prepared to blindly follow such nonsense with no foolproof, concrete evidence; just like the global warming fiasco. No wonder the country and the world are in such bad shape!
An attitude but a slither away from directly setting fire to smokers - for their own 'good' of course. Has the man no sense of history?
In time, it will seem equally improbable
Somebody else that knows with utter certainty what the future brings. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard about the inexorable march of history, the tide of events. It always expresses hope rather than certainty, because nobody actually knows what the future brings.
Smokers have been persecuted before, and no doubt they will be persecuted again.
What a complete load of Tosh from Mr Sexton. Yet another piece in a long line from those who hate smoking and smokers in all its forms. He states that 114,000 people die from smoking every year. In my day job, long gone, I was a statistician. My bible was HMG's 'Annual Abstract of Statistics'. Every year between 600,000 and 700,000 people die in this country. Not surprising in a country of 60,000,000 folks and a normal life span of 70 or so years. So 5 out of 6 people die of something else. We do not see that in the headlines.
I say here, not for the first time, if they want me to stop smoking in the street then our political masters will have to introduce a total tobacco ban. Distorted statistics and denormalisation will not prevent me lighting up a legal and highly taxed product in the open air. The 2007 indoor ban was cloaked in health and safety. It won't work on our polluted streets whatever idiots like Mr Sexton say.
Where does the information on levels and rates of smokers and smoking come from?
If it's from surveys, does anyone tell the truth in them?
If it's from cigarette sales, what about all the untaxed smokes that are bought?
Hi guys I hope you are well.
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT please do your very best to attend as the Department Of Health is sending people down to challenge his passive smoking/SHS paper, via an email from Patrick.
"On Wednesday 16 December, the Democracy Institute releases, Are Public Smoking Bans Necessary? - the latest research paper in our Social Risk Series.
Here are the details:
Wed 16 Dec 2009
11.00-11.10am Welcome & Introduction
11.10-11.40am Presentation by Dr Patrick Basham
11.40-12 noon Q & A Discussion
Waterways Room
One Queen Anne's Gate
Westminster
London SW1H 9BT
An evil man trying to take advantage of a minority.
All I would need to do is add a pencil moustache.
Uncanny likeness.
Something VERY nasty must have scared his mother during pregnancy.
Were it not for the fact that he actually gets PAID for this bilious nonsense, I could almost feel sorry for him..............
Sick of talking
Tired of twittering
Bored of googling
Dulled by conventions,conferences and conformity
Need some fireworks, soon
Nothing to lose
I read the full article (click HERE in Simon's post). There are about 14 comments. Of those, about 13 are against him (pro-smoker). I have left a very caustic comment. I would suggest that everyone here do the same as soon as poss. (ie before the article disappears). It is worthwhile being in the majority for a change. I remember, just before the smoking ban, the Mirror issuing an editorial condemning 'this filthy habit'. I wrote a letter to the Editor (by post direct to him by name) pointing out that I did not take lightly (as I am sure some 50% of his readers feel likewise) to being described as 'a person with filthy habits' simply because I enjoy tobacco.
I do not know if my letter actually got through, but the 'filthy' did not appear again in any subsequent articles.
"Just do it!"
"So one perverse result of the ban is that there is much more smoking visible on the streets than there used to be."
No shit Sherlock!
I put this comment in. Now to wait and see if they publish it.
"Children should not grow up thinking that's normal”. That’s right wrap them up in cotton wool as usual. Every time I hear the anti’s say think of the children it reminds me of this quote wrote by Adolph Hitler in Mein Kampf AKA the intolerants handbook.
"The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation."
Is Sexton one of the boys from Brazil ?
I'll do a deal Mr Sexton, Ban all vehicles from outside and then ban smoking fair enough ?
But Noooo we can't do that little Johnny needs to be taked to school dosen't he ? and we must have our car.
Get real Mr Sexton that comment of mine is just as stupid as yours. Grow Up !!
The comments under the the article seem to have gone (1.30pm).
Yea the comments have gone.
"Goebels" pulled them off.
Just shows how they can't take a dose of their own medicine! Wonder what they are so scared of if they are so sure that their science is correct and not corrupt?
Comments showing again
I have just re-entered the Evening Standard article as above. I note that my comment has not appeared. One can only assume that it was censored.
I do not understand why. I was most polite, but I did suggest that A PERSON'S RIGHT TO SPEAK TO ME ENDS AT MY EARS. I said that if anyone speaks to me outside about my smoking, I would feel very insulted since I did not give that person permission to speak to me. I might therefore respond in kind and insult them. In which case, that person may hit me, in which case I would sue them, and I might also sue the Evening Standard for encouraging violence against smokers.
Perhaps it is a good thing that they censored my comment. It suggests that they were scared to publish it. It may give them to think that the possibility that they may be inciting violence should encourage them to mitigate the venom that they publish.
I am now going to complain (if I can find a contact email at the Evening Standard) about my comment being censored.
I have been back into the Evening Standard and found email contact with the Editor. I have emailed him with a complaint about the censorship of my comment. I told him the gist of my comment and asked him to tell me why my comment was censored. Obviously, I may not get a reply, in which case I will pester him to death about it - and complain to the press commission.
This matter illustrates how important it is for all posters to this site to get out there. If Simon gives us a link, use it and make your point. The more that we become the majority, the better.
My original comment was posted, however a poster called Tarn has had a number of comments posted, including one challenging mine. Unfortunately, it seems that my response to him/her has not been allowed. And Junican, I was even more polite and politically correct than you!
If anyone here would like to post a comment to Tarn, whether in direct support of my comment or not, please feel free. There are people here who are more than capable of taking the smug little so and so down a peg or two, far more than I can.
Lyn and junican,
My latest comment got published withing half an hour of posting.
I have just checked again and the comments I posted yesterday evening are now showing, as is Tarn's response!
Same here, Lyn - my response to Tarn last night finally appeared today. It looks as if the moderators all knock off at the end of the normal working day.
Meanwhile some idiot called David King has finally explained to us exactly why the pubs are not now full of anti-smokers enjoying their "clean air". It's because they're put off going in by the smokers outside!
Rick, us smokers were bound to get the blame, yet again for preventing the antis actually spending money in such a place as a pub! Lets face it, the drinks probably aren't expensive enough for most of them!
I know, time for a saucer of milk!
Lyn et al.
I have just been to the Evening Standard and noted you comments and Tarn's. I have just posted a comment there which, I think, demolishes Tarn's arguments. We shall have to wait to see if my comments are published.
As regards my earlier posts regarding my unpublished comment, I received an email today saying that the email address of the Editor was not recognised!
I will not put up with it.
I will try again, and if unsuccessful, I will complain and complain.
I have been much heartened by the responses on the Evening Standard article and also on the MailOnLine article. We posters here have often wondered how we can have any effect in the wider world since there seem to be so few of us. What has heartened me has been the number of others who post comments on these articles who do not appear here. And, what is especially true is the preponderance of pro-smokers as opposed to anti-smokers.
Thanks for that Junican. Wonder what, if anything, Tarn will come back with - I note the lack of response so far to my last response to his comments.
I can often get too 'emotionally' caught up in these arguments, so am not always able to cite facts and make points as clearly as others, such as yourself.
I have put in two comments, neither of which have been included,
Lyn et al.
My response to Tarn was published. She (it seems to be a 'she' by the way) has replied. Take a look at it - she seems not to know much about statistics.
Interesting Junican, especially as she didn't like the idea of controlling or banning cars, because they are useful! Now she says, control what we can!